Adding Windows host to Cacti

Hello my dear Linux Yogi’s,

in this illustration I am going to show you how you add a Windows Host to your Cacti Monitoring System. If you have not set up your Cacti Server please read the following Article first. Read Network Monitoring with Cacti.

Let’s get started. The very first thing we have to do it to install SNMP for Windows and configure the service. After you have installed SNMP you need to go to the Services Management Console and look for the “SNMP Service“.

Windows SNMP Service

Right click the “SNMP Service” and change to the Tab “Agent” and enter your information there and check all the boxes below. See Screenshot below.

configure SNMP Service

Next switch to the Tab “Security” and adjust the Community string to be the same as your Cacti Server and adjust the security to your desire. For our example I leave everything the default.

configure SNMP Community

Great this is done and now we can move on to add our Windows Server to the Cacti Monitoring. Log in to your Cacti Server and click on “Devices” in the left hand menu. See below.

Cacti new device

Then click on the “Add” link in the top right hand corner. It right under the logout Link. See below.

Then you should see the below displayed screen.

enter device information

Enter the information for your Windows Server you like to monitor. See below for an example.

entered server information

After you clicked on “Create” you should receive a message that the device was created successfully like the screenshot below.

saved device information

You should now see something similar to the screenshot below. Just go ahead and “Add”

Adding options – graphs

Now click on the link “Create Graphs for this Host” See below.

creating new graphs for device

Now this part is important. You have to select what you like to monitor. Don’t just select everything be mindful what you would like to see graphed.

select desired graphs

This below is the second page. After you made your selection click on the “Create” button in the bottom right hand corner.

select desired graphs 2

Now you’ve been given the chance to make some adjustments on the graphing color. Usually you don’t need to change anything at all. Go ahead and proceed by clicking on the “Create” button again.

adjust graphs colors

If your graphs have been created you should see something similar like the screenshot below.

added graphs

Now the graphs have been created you need to place them on the Graphing Tree. Click on the “Graphs Trees” link.

display new graphs

You should see something like the screenshot below.

select graphing tree

In the top right hand corner click on the “Default Tree” link

add new graphs to tree

and now click on the “Add” link in the top right hand corner and you should see something like the screenshot below.

placing them on the tree

Change the “Tree Item Type” to “Host” and the part below changes so that you can actually select the new server in the “Host” drop down menu. I usually leave the rest untouched. Click on Create and you are done. Give Cacti somewhere between 15 – 30 minutes to generate the graphs. If they have not been generated after that time you need to start troubleshooting the issue. Usually its a Windows Server issue like firewall or service related.

Thank you for reading this illustration. If you like me to illustrate something you like to see please don’t hesitate to send me and email with my contact for or just leave a comment on my blog.